The European Central Bank has slowed down the purchase of bonds

Last week, the European Central Bank slowed down the purchase of bonds under the emergency pandemic program. This signals that the ECB relies primarily on verbal interventions to halt the growth of bond yields, which threatens the recovery of the euro area economy. Gross purchases under the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP) reached € 16.9 billion last week, at least in 4 weeks. This is despite warnings from several senior ECB officials that the eurozone is unlikely to cope with rising debt service costs. ECB Executive Board member Fabio Panetta said on Tuesday that the rapid growth in government bond yields in recent weeks "is undesirable and needs to be resisted." He added that it was not too late. "We are assessing the market situation, we can intervene and recalibrate the pace of our purchases. We have been highly efficient over the past 12 months. And I think we can still effectively manage the market situation and revenues."